Bestselling author Richard Reeves provides an authoritative account of the internment of more than 120,000 Japanese-Americans and Japanese aliens during World War II.

Less than three months after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and inflamed the nation, President Roosevelt signed an executive order declaring parts of four western states to be a war zone operating under military rule. The U.S. Army immediately began rounding up thousands of Japanese-Americans, sometimes giving them less than 24 hours to vacate their houses and farms. For the rest of the war, these victims of war hysteria were imprisoned in primitive camps.

In Infamy, the story of this appalling chapter in American history is told more powerfully than ever before. Acclaimed historian Richard Reeves has interviewed survivors, read numerous private letters and memoirs, and combed through archives to deliver a sweeping narrative of this atrocity. Men we usually consider heroes—FDR, Earl Warren, Edward R. Murrow—were in this case villains, but we also learn of many Americans who took great risks to defend the rights of the internees. Most especially, we hear the poignant stories of those who spent years in “war relocation camps,” many of whom suffered this terrible injustice with remarkable grace.

Racism, greed, xenophobia, and a thirst for revenge: a dark strand in the American character underlies this story of one of the most shameful episodes in our history. But by recovering the past, Infamy has given voice to those who ultimately helped the nation better understand the true meaning of patriotism.

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Quotes & Awards

“[This] detailed account…combines Reeves’ journalist training with his historian’s eye to give us a page-turner on how hysteria at the highest levels can shatter our most fundamental rights.”

Tom Brokaw, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Reeves evenhandedly examines this dangerous precedent-setting time when the Constitution was trampled by misinformation, prejudice, and fear. Today as Muslim and Hispanic immigrants are being blamed for America’s ills, Infamy is a timely and important read.”

James Bradley, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Reeves’ excellent book gives us an opportunity to learn from past mistakes…Reeves is especially good at bringing to life the social experience of internment.”

Wall Street Journal

“Highly readable…The story of this national disgrace, long buried…still has the power to shock. [Infamy is a] vivid and instructive reminder of what war and fear can do to civilized people.”

New York Times Book Review

“A compulsively readable, emotionally rich, and passionately written account…Reeves’ excellent Infamy, the first popular, general history of the subject in more than twenty-five years, reminds us that not only can it happen here, it did…Every reader who has lived the post-9/11 era will immediately notice the parallels.”

Los Angeles Times

“Reeves, an award-winning journalist, recounts the unfolding of this outrage with a justifiable sense of moral indignation…This is a painful but necessary and timely reminder of how overblown fears about national security can have shameful consequences.”

Booklist (starred review)

“Reeves mixes intimate narratives with historical documents to give an authoritative account of one of the darkest periods in American history.”

Library Journal

“An engaging and comprehensive depiction of an essential, but sometimes overlooked, era of US history.”

Kirkus Reviews

“The US internment…is a painful and shameful chapter of our history, yet reader James Yaegashi performs this work primarily without rancor. A Japanese-American himself, Yaegashi succinctly tells the story of racial hatred, fear, and greed as American citizens were forced to leave their homes and herded into camps that ranged from primitive to putrid. There is a tinge of pride in his voice when he talks about the loyal Japanese-Americans who willingly submitted to the camps for the greater good of their adopted country. And there is perhaps a touch of anger when Yaegashi tells about the greedy people who preyed on the internees, offering to buy their homes and possessions for pennies.”

AudioFile

A New York Times Editor’s Choice

Listener Reviews

About the Author

Richard Reeves is the bestselling author of presidential biographies, including
President Nixon and President Kennedy, acclaimed as the best nonfiction
book of the year by Time magazine. A syndicated columnist and winner of
the American Political Science Association’s Carey McWilliams Award, he
lives in New York and Los Angeles.

About the Narrator

James Yaegashi has appeared in numerous Broadway and off-Broadway productions, film, and television roles. He was also a popular radio disc jockey in Japan. He is a four-time winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award for audiobook narration, and his voice-over credits include a featured role in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

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